Many data centers in use today employ a cloud computing paradigm. As is well known, the cloud computing paradigm is a model that provides ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services), as part of a cloud infrastructure, that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction (see, e.g., NIST Special Publication No. 800-145).
Further, data repositories create a centralized location for data that can facilitate agile business or other queries and analytics by leveraging a diverse variety of data sources in order to produce business or other insight. Some common types of data repositories that a business or some other entity may maintain include, but are not limited to, data lakes, data warehouses, and data marts. A data lake is typically considered to be a centralized data storage system for structured and unstructured data. A data warehouse is typically considered to be a centralized data storage system for integrated data from one or more disparate sources. A data mart is typically considered to be a simpler data warehouse focused on a single subject.
Applications and their corresponding data sets are undergoing more scrutiny by outside auditors than ever before due to governmental regulations, cyber-attacks, and consumer trust demands. An enterprise may use Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) tools to provide compliance dashboards that report the end result of internal audits. These reports are then given to various governing bodies to prove compliance. Further, there may be internal employees that wish to revisit scenarios and process interactions, especially those that involve multiple data sources, with an ability to drill down into specific metadata involved in a previous event.